


In The Ashes

by alexanndrian



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 09:51:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanndrian/pseuds/alexanndrian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes a glimpse is all you need to know the ending of the fairytale. Collection of Mass Effect drabbles. Mostly featuring Shenko, but with a dash of Gen relationships as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love is a Losing Game (Shepard/Kaidan)

The scalding water beating down her back doesn't help. The cold tile against her flesh doesn't help. The soap stinging her eyes doesn't help. The entire space around her feels numb. Shepard stares ahead into nothing - clutching herself. It's been five days, ten hours and thirty-seven minutes since Gunnery Chef Ashley Williams was killed in action.  _Did she make the right choice?_  

"Shepard?" Shepard hears Kaidan's voice through the door. Shepard tries to mold herself into the wall. The numbness was starting to ebb back into the guilt digging it’s way into her soul.  _Did she make the right choice?_

_"I love you so much."_

_With her hands in his hair and her lips mapping the landscape of his skin - as he lifts her face and stares into her with summer in his eyes. He finally tells her._

_"I love you."_

Shepard puts her face into her hands, "Go away, Staff Lieutenant." 

"Shepard." Kaidan's voice breaks below her and she can feel his desperation. 

_"Promise me you won't leave me," Shepard says as he pushes into her with practiced precision._

_Kaidan stops and gazes into her. Suddenly Shepard feels vulnerable under him - not used to relinquishing her power. Not used to feeling so - so needy. But, she wants him and she's more afraid of losing him than protecting her pride_

_"I'd do any thing for you. You know that right?" he says and she nods because she does know. She just needs the reminder._  

The door to the bathroom closes and opens in the background. Then he's naked in the shower in front of her with a head cock to the right. She flicks her eyes towards him but doesn't move from her shelter. The water has a cleansing effect on her spirit, trying to wash away the imperfections. 

"I told you to go away." Shepard doesn't put any real meaning behind it. She needs him to touch her. She needs to feel his pulse beneath his skin to reassure her that he's still breathing. He’s still here.

Kaidan places a hand to the small of her back cautiously, pulling her closer. But her feet barely move so he walks this distance between them. Like he always has. 

"Ashley is dead," Shepard says.

Kaidan kisses comfort into her hair, her forehead, the corner of her mouth before his hands snake into her hair - smart enough not to say anything when it starts to fall out under her stress.

"Ash would want you to be happy." 

"No, we don't know what she would want because she's dead, isn't she?" Shepard snaps at him, trying to push his face away from hers. She suddenly feels disgusting under the cleansing heat of the showerhead and Kaidan's balmy kisses. "She could hate me for all I know."

"Ash wasn't like that. She wasn't li -." 

"Like what? Like what, Kaidan? Like me." Shepard turns her head aloft to look at him. "Because I would want me to burn for what I did." 

"You two were nothing alike. At all." When Shepard tries to drag herself away from him, insulted, he pulls her back in - resting his temple on hers. "She was friendly and loud mouthed, fiercely loyal and refreshingly poetic."

Shepardfinally decides to let him stare into her. She shrinks under his gaze a little, the sheer power of it. He looks at her like nothing else in the galaxy exists at any given moment. It’s dangerous. He tips her chin with his finger.

"But you. You're extremely clever, particularly terrifying, the most powerful person I've ever seen and I love you more than words can ever express. Both of you were nothing alike and that doesn't make either of you any less perfect. Ash knew the score and she paid the price because she believed in you and in me and in this crew. We can do this Shepard, you just have to let us help you."

He kisses her before the sob escapes, swallowing her heaving cries with his mouth. She breaks down beneath him and he's there to catch her. Like always. 

 _Did she make the right choice?_ Yes.


	2. Wandering Limbs (Shepard/Kaidan)

Kaidan eases the pads of his fingers up Shepard's leg, brushing past the strong muscles hidden underneath the skin of her thighs. Shepard herself lets out a shaky breath as his finger draw closer into her warmth. His hands are dripping with sunshine, twilight and edgewood. Kaidan watches the colors transfer from his fingers to attach themselves to her skin. 

Her body is his canvas, his fingers the brush and her soul the masterpiece he wants to replicate. He wants her to see herself in the colors, the way he sees her when he looks into her eyes.  The duality of her spirit. Split into fearsome warrior goddess with shield and sword armed in each hand and the fractured beauty he sees now with her arm draped over her face trying to hid herself.

Kaidan licks her outer folds, causing a hitch in her breath and her right leg lifts, widening her thighs for him. He glides a hand up the expanse of her stomach, nudging her sex with his nose. The paint - collected into a blurred brown with hints of brightness underneath - smears together with the sweat starting to collect at her belly button. His tongue rolls against her clit twice before she moans and removes the cover from her eyes. This earns him a look from her. 

Shepard props herself up on her elbows and uses the tips of her fingers to brush through his hair. "So, you never told me why it is you're doing this. Not that I'm complaining of course," she amends when he raises an eyebrow at her. 

Kaidan leans back and his hands move to clutch her breasts. They are soft and he takes pleasure in the fact that they can fit in the palm of his hands with ease. She lets out one of those shaky breaths when his thumb brushes past a nipple drowning her with color and desire all building to one great precipice.

"Because I want you to see yourself the way I see you," he says, his hands dragging back down her body. "Full of color and life and - and ju -. I just want you to see that you are the world to me. And the only way I know how to show you is to paint you in it."

Shepard looks into him and just like always his heart stops because of her eyes. They speak the secrets of the universe to him - even when she's not completely aware of how much she lets him in on her private cosmos. He won't tell her otherwise.

"I love you so much." Shepard hitches out a breath when his tongue laps into her tasting salt and freshness within.   

Kaidan kisses the fleshy inside of her thigh. "I know." 


	3. Another Day in Paradise (Shepard/Kaidan)

"I can't do this anymore." Shepard shakes her head, pacing up and down the small kitchen, rutting a circle around the island they just had installed. "I can't go on pretending that we love each other anymore."

"I wasn't aware that we were pretending," Kaidan mutters. 

Shepard stops her pacing and opens her mouth before closing it again, dropping her head against her chest. She has guilt in her eyes and it makes him feel good. He can admit that lately their relationship had been strained. But, he thought he had more time before the fire warm coals of their relationship were snuffed out by the distance that wedged this gap between them.

"I ju -."

The front door opens and the crisp autumn wind picks up through the space. The wind is followed by footsteps and a small pink bundle swathed in jackets rams into his legs.

"Daddy!" The bundle lifts it's arms and Kaidan laughs. He picks her up and pulls the scarf from her nose.

"Hey sweetie." Kaidan kisses her nose, earning him a giggle. "Grandma really warmed you up huh?"

"Yeah." She snuggles into his shoulder and wraps her arms around him as far as they can go.

"Look Amber." Kaidan shakes her on his hip so she faces outwards. "Look, mommy's home."

Amber doesn't move her head from Kaidan's shoulder. "Hi mommy."

Shepard pulls her lips together. Her hands come to rest on her hips. "Hello, Amber."

When Kaidan tries to remove his daughter's mountain of layers he sees Shepard mouth to him,  _'I just can't anymore.'_  He turns, pretending he doesn't see her and doesn't follow her when she walks out. She would be back, like always. Eventually. 


	4. Buy The Stars (Kaidan/Shepard)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> medieval au i wrote for a tumblr ask meme. maybe i should call up harlequin :D

He is drowning under the taste of her mouth, tearing underneath her fingers - as sharp as daggers and cutting him just as well - clasped into his blouse. His hands attempt to touch her everywhere, running down her swan neck and coming to rest along the jut of her clavicle, where there is moonlight under her flesh. He pulls away and pushes his face into her neck inhaling skin steeped in honey and summer.

There is a sharp sound to their right and it seems to echo around them. The young Shepard’s eyes go wide and she pushes Kaidan away with a sharp shove, her palms connecting with his chest. The virgin queen, as they’ve taken to calling her in the North, stares at him with eyes filled to it’s brim with stars, blinding him.

"We cannot." She turns down her chin slightly, running a tongue along her kiss bruised lips, “Saren has eyes and ears everywhere. And I -." She lets out a shaky breath, bringing up a hand to cover the same mouth that had moaned under him, “I will not be overthrown for uncontrolled emotions. I refuse."


End file.
